Quick Look Back on 2025

Hello all! Nice to see you here. I hate that this post is, um, about four months late. I do still blog… a little bit, right? With a young child and going back to work full-time last year, life has been busier and fuller than ever before. My free time is so little and I can barely even work on paid projects I have, but it would feel wrong not to do a little recap of last year, as is tradition, after all. We kind of left off after all of those 2024 posts I did*, and I was still technically on maternity leave at the beginning of 2025.

In January I spent loads of time with my two-year-old bud, going to baby operas, the fancy playground with the trampolines and beach bar – I even made a little Instagram reel about a day in the life on maternity leave in the Czech Republic. I was getting ready to take on more work responsibilities in February and wanted to document this time with a video, at the least. Little M started at a wonderful nursery, two days a week and we were slowly doing adaptation mornings and afternoons. Turns out – the little guy, our curious, Gemini social butterfly adapted quite quickly and was totally ready to hang out with other little ones, easily doing a full day by himself and napping away from home. I was often amazed at the children outside for two hours in the early, freezing-cold January mornings… this would be a new ball-game, for sure.

February brought mid-winter break (refusing to call it spring break, but I guess it was). We did our favorite South Bohemia free day activities, like go to Gmund to the spa or to Sladovna in Pisek. It was a relatively mild-ish winter (compared to now!) and we celebrated our first Karneval (masopust) and all of our other annual traditions (Lunar New Year dinner, Slovak Days lunch, etc). Even all through the winter, I enjoyed M and I’s weekly Wednesday fun days together… although it did seem like he pretty much had a cold for three months straight. I started up with my improv troop this month which was all kinds of silly and good fun, especially for cold winter weekend afternoons.

March brought nice springy, mild weather (off and on, as March does… there was a day or two of snow thrown in for fun). Playgrounds, first walking and hiking trips into the countryside. Choir practice, improv practice and taking Little Man to the very popular childrens’ planetarium show for the first time, which he did not exactly love (the dark freaked him out a little bit).

In April I got an early birthday present: a shiny new Dutch city bike, just in time for spring! I used to have a rusty old hand-me-down with tires that never would hold air longer for two days– way too annoying to use– but I was looking forward to all the family bike rides we would have all spring and summer long (and oh, there were many!). Spring, for the record, is absolutely the perfect time to get a new bicycle or get back into cycling. It’s just starting to warm up, there are flowers blooming and cherry blossoms everywhere and you get wonderful whiffs of them as you ride by. My mother-in-law visited just in time for Easter and we had a nice couple of weeks with her here. Easter Sunday was absolutely gorgeous, 21’C and we celebrated it all with a fantastic picnic day outside. Alex and I even cycled to the kino to see Nosferatu together one beautiful spring evening! Riding home in the sunset on our bikes together, cutting through the square past the Samson fountain, aforementioned whiffs of blooming flowers perfuming our path… it was one of my favorite memories of the year.

The end of April and beginning of May brought our first really hot days – wonderful spring, almost summery weather. We spent a few days in Prague to properly see my mother-in-law off in style (mmm, dinner at Cantina) during an immaculate couple of Prague days. Warm evenings, beautiful sunsets, Prague castle in the distance… it was very much life is good vibes. Sadly, on my birthday little M ended up coming down with a fever that lasted much too long – it was the most ill I’ve ever seen him. When he was better we enjoyed the rest of May with lots of fun festivals and childrens’ events. Festival season really kicks of in May here in the Czech Republic and everyone is out and about.

In early June we were off to Berlin! June was one of my favorite months of the year because I positively vowed that in 2025 I was going to make an effort to go to my favorite bands’ European tour dates, no matter what I had to do. So, that meant dragging the family to Berlin for a long weekend, but I don’t think anyone was really upset about it, even though it was quite stormy during much of the weekend. We stayed right near Gleisdreieck, a new neighborhood for me. I have this thing with only staying in the same ol’ favorite districts of Berlin but lately I thought branching out would actually be the best idea. The previous year we stayed way out in Karow — much to far away, so I didn’t want to repeat that mistake again. I went to my concert, we enjoyed our time in the city and even met up with Natalye and her family, whom we sadly don’t get to see very often these days. M wore his Minnesota t-shirt one day and got a lot of love from expat Minnesotans in Berlin! On Monday we flew back to Budejovice on the train, just in time to attend a parent meeting at M’s new preschool (still can’t believe I came back from Berlin and went to a parent meeting the same day?).

Mid-June was all about our little guy’s third birthday. He was spoiled and celebrated at his nursery the day of, and later that week we had a little park birthday party on a hot day in our favorite park. It must be mentioned that I was off to Prague solo the following week for an absolutely life-changing concert, and even ran into one of my students in the pit! Not only that, but we had visitors from the U.S. at the end of the month! I have to emphasize that we nearly never have any non-family visitors. It happened once sort of by accident many years ago, and then in June 2025. Alex’s friends Nick and Cindy spent a wonderful week with us, doing all the fun summer South Bohemia things and showing them what our life is like here in Budejovice.

We spent the beginning of Prague in July with our friends, staying at a huge apartment directly above the Artic Bakery on Ujezd. Pro-tip: Stay above the Artic Bakery! It will smell like donuts in your WC! The proximity to delicious pastry is amazing! Won’t regret it. Little M loved our friends and pretty much considered them part of the family after their week with us. Thankfully, he got to attend so many fun field trips with his nursery before we left for the U.S. later that month! We wanted him to have as much Czech exposure as possible, knowing he’d start preschool on a full-time basis in September. The biggest life hack ever for a toddler parent: Have your little one go on a fun outdoor day trip the day before you fly out on a big international trip. You get the day at home to pack all the things (let me stress, IMPOSSIBLE WITH A THREE YEAR OLD AROUND) and they have fun and get tuckered out right before a period of extended sitting around. It’s the biggest win-win! At the end of the month, we flew to Washington state (the flight went OK, I rated it about a 5/10, not as nice as traveling with a 13 month old but not that shabby) and immediately we delved into the world of park story-times, library visits, pub trivia nights, theater evenings, beach afternoons and boating with old friends, as you do when back home on the island.

My brother got married in early August, so it was all about getting ready for his country wedding, between visiting with friends and beach-life, of course. His wedding day (Friday, August 8th, incidentally the second anniversary of my father’s death) was a really lovely day with nice warm, mild weather. I’m embarrassed that M pretty much cried through their vows (OK, I kind of understand people who have child-free weddings… I don’t like it, but I get it) but then he just went crazy on their lawn with a toy lawnmower for two hours and crashed the mother-son dance.

I can’t believe I didn’t visit Seattle at all this trip home, just stayed on our little island near the San Juans, but we couldn’t swing it this time, three-year-old and all. Fortunately, a few lovely friends came up to visit (love you all! thank you!). Alex and I celebrated our 10th anniversary at the beach resort where we got married, even staying in the cabin where we stayed during our wedding weekend! Just a weekend of reading books, drinking coffee, hot tubbing on the patio (!) while watching woodpeckers and other wildlife, eating delicious wild salmon (I had forgotten what the color should be like). We had a great time and it was a wonderful way to mark the occasion. The rest of my time in Washington was spent in the garage at my childhood house sorting through every belonging I have and pairing it all down, no easy task.

We then flew to Chicago for a whirlwind weekend with Alex’s cousins whom we haven’t seen in far too long. Now that we both have boys of nearly the same age, it was a different kind of fun, partying it up at the neighborhood block party (Chicago block parties go hard), catching a White Sox game (M’s first ball game! Not the Mariners sadly, but I do love any ball game), and spending a day exploring the wonderful Shedd Aquarium before catching the train to Michigan, where we spent the last days of the month catching up with family. M misses his cousin so much and still asks me to talk about Chicago every few days.

September meant time to come home! A few days after arrival, M had his first day of preschool. His report from that day: “I want to go to preschool ALL the days”. I think he’s a fan. (Even now, he gets mad half the time when I come to pick him up because he wants to play more) Fortunately, the post-USA blues didn’t hit for too long, we were pretty busy in September and even spending a weekend visiting friends at their new house in Tabor.

In early October I traveled with my choir to Jirkovsky pisnovar, a fantastic choir competition weekend in North Bohemia, held in a castle! It was my first overnight choir trip and I was pleasantly surprised by how much fun it was and what a wonderfully-organized event the Pisnovar is. I absolutely want to return one day! My choirmates dutifully showed me around North Bohemia, as I’d never been there and we even visited some of the coalmine sites. It was also my first time away from Alex and M for a weekend and I forgot I didn’t have to go to bed early because I didn’t need to wake up super early? (I did anyway) It’s hard to break some habits once you become a parent, isn’t it. Otherwise, we enjoyed the beautiful mild autumn and I even planned M”s first ever trick-or-treating experience and a children’s’ Halloween party! It was a lot of work, ohhhh my goodness (too soon to tell if I’ll attempt it again), but everyone did have a lot of fun, especially the kids – I guess that’s the important thing. I did not get it together to properly dress up in a good costume, sadly… maybe that’s what this year is for.

November brought St. Martin’s lantern festivals, beautiful foliage and still riding the bike everywhere as the temperatures dropped (I would continue cycling until Christmas time). We celebrated a beautiful Thanksgiving dinner the Saturday before with our Americzech friends and M had far too much fun, doing things like sneaking popcorn and jumping on the bed with the other kiddos (not at the same time, of course). At the end of the month I took a little solo shopping trip to Prague (to stock up on Christmas goodies for the next month) which was kind of a fun and festive thing to do!

December was just like all the other wonderful Decembers here in South Bohemia, Czech Republic. Lots of Christmas market and the concerts they have there and M was visited three different times by Mikuláš, which he initially was quite nervous about (because of Čert, the devil that accompanies him, if you know, you know) but I think we’re left at this point with only good feelings. There was loads of baking, many day trips around South Bohemia to visit the holiday atmosphere in all the unique and special places and, would you believe it, a solid dusting of snow on December 24th, the Czech Christmas day (štědrý den). So, a White Christmas for us all, after all! We had wonderfully quiet and relaxed holidays, and decided to take a somewhat spontaneous New Year’s Eve (Silvestr) trip to the Salzkamergut, Bad Ischl, Austria. We have spent Christmas there once before and it was just lovely, not to mention the epic Eurothermen Spa, where we spent an entire New Year’s Day of 2026. A better way to spend New Year’s Day than Day 1 of potty training as in 2025, if I can say. Grateful for both. Grateful for all of it.

In 2025, PUP’s Who Will Look After the Dogs?, Turnstile’s Never Enough and The Armed’s The Future Is Here and Everything Needs to Be Destroyed were (predictably) my favorite new albums. My favorite book I read was by far, The Wide Wide Sea by Hampton Sides – it wasn’t a banner year for reading as I slogged on with a lot of parenting non-fiction and most novels were unremarkable. I stopped breastfeeding (contributing to the decrease of books read, for sure) and we moved into a different chapter of motherhood – from toddlerhood to (young) childhood. I’d love to talk more about how things have been going lately, starting preschool in another language in a future post! (Long story short on that: The transition for me was probably far greater than for him.) I also worked on a secret literary-type project which will hopefully be released this year!

My motto for last year (which I will be continuing with!) is: perfection is the enemy of “good enough”. I’m learning to call things “good enough”, these days.

For this year? I’m planning to spend my big ol’ milestone birthday in a beautiful capital city near us, head to the Karlovy Vary Film Festival in June then in late-July, we’re heading to someplace cooler, Atlantic, more northern and that is an absolute very special place to Alex and I — we can’t wait to return!

Hope your winter was cozy and that you are enjoying the beginnings of beautiful spring in your corner of the world, and thanks for sticking with me. The news and world events have been historically psychotic lately. When the situation is particularly unpleasant, we just focus on doing what we can, and then get off the internet, put down the phone and and then focus on our community here, living in and enjoying the present moment. It’s all you can do, sometimes, if you’re lucky enough to be able to do so.

*Way to guarantee to stop blogging: Force yourself to write a bunch of posts for a challenge.